I think these walls are collapsing around me because I'm not smart. I don't think with my head, I think with my hands in terms of what I can make, what I can break, and how to put back together what was previously given up on.

No, I don't always have a steady grip on reality and sometimes my abstract sight, the only one I can really see with, wavers and I'm blind to everything around me. So I feel my way through the thorns and the storms and put my friends in poetry so that way, when they leave, I can still say we're gonna be best friends forever.

It won't really surprise any of you to know that I auditioned to be Wonder Woman. They told me I had great spirit but that cape was way too big and those boots were too tall and I just didn't have the look, you know, that superhero look. But I had great spirit! And if I just stuck around long enough, they were sure I could change the world.

But even if that doesn't quite work out, even if the world is exactly the same fifty years from now, I want to change a life. I want to pull someone out of a burning building, or at least stop the man who set the fire in the first place. I want to give out chocolate on street corners and I want to hold an umbrella for a complete stranger on a rainy day.

Don't listen to what those big people tell you, they grew tall on deceit. I'm here to tell you that it's the little things like picking up my keys off the ground and pausing to tell me that you're glad that I kept breathing one more day than planned. Those are the things that change lives.

So don't worry about trying to fly, because every time you do people are going to be standing on your cape, hoping you fall face first into the ground. You've got to start small. Go up to a stranger and thank them for being beautiful. Go up to a single mother and thank her for bringing light into the world. Tell her everything I've just told you, let her know that she's not expected to change the world, just her daughter's life.

It sounds hard, I know. It sounds impossible and society says it can't happen but don't worry. If you just try you can't do any worse to the people who have already been given up on. And it's not the world, no, it's not everything they said you had to do growing up. But it's a start.

Yeah, I might like to think in terms of creativity. In terms of making and breaking and building new homes for those given up on but in the end I close my eyes and I like to think in terms of saving you.

An old spoken word piece I did for a local thing called Writer's Gallery. I went to find it because I'm a writer, dammit, and I ought to have more writing up here than just my weird old poems from high school.

I don't write a lot of happy things, but this is certainly the best one I've done.

Hello from Michel-le-fou. I will give you a fair critique.The most outstanding feature is that this qualifies as a free verse par excellence, because the lines are more like sentences than metric lines of a poem. There is emphatically spoken words in this poem, and the diction is unique from the opening onwards.The walls are collapsing because I think with my hands.Precisely, the brain empowers the hands, so I cannot agree that this makes you less intelligent; it makes you a craftsman at least. But it was a catching line. The remainder is a speech to the object of the poem about flying etc. It was well-said.Have you ever heard the pop song Supergirl?

Well, I'm not the best critique, but I'll try my best. This was very moving. It got deep down into my heart and got me thinking. I even smiled as I read. You have made me feel better on how I see the world. And now I feel less shameful for the things I weren't able to accomplish in life because now, even the small smile I put on the girl that was contemplating suicide helped even if I didn't think so. This was quite a thoughtful piece of work you have made. Well written, and well said. Good job!

What a very insightful and refreshing look on life. These days so many people write depressing stories that have no traces of hope in them, but yours gives us a hopeful message of the little things we can do to make things better even when the future is bleak. That's something that we, as a species, need to be reminded of a lot more often. c:

I read it, I love it, and I just want you to know ... I always hold my umbrella for complete strangers. And to make matters even stranger ... I often sing "Singin' In The Rain" while I'm keeping them dry. Meantime, I'm getting drenched ... and they are always amazed that I don't seem to care about the downpour. I've been known to walk through puddles ... and sometimes I'll jump through them just for the pure joy of seeing how high I can splash the water! These antics (I have many!) always put a smile on people's faces. And that is the whole idea. Sooooo, I guess that's my version of changing lives. Congrats on the DD!

"So don't worry about trying to fly, because every time you do people are going to be standing on your cape, hoping you fall face first into the ground. "Now that right there is a powerful line. Hit me like a punch.